20 January

On Inauguration Day

by Jon Katz
On Inauguration Day

The beginning of love, wrote Thomas Merton,  is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image.

If in loving people we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them.

I think this is the challenge for me over the next years, to resist asking others to fit themselves into my own image, my own values, while saying grounded and productive and peaceful. I think it won’t be easy, but I am determined to try to do it. Our system is broken and hurting, I do not know yet what I can do to help it and also respect the boundaries around my own life.

I promise me (and you) that I will not be one of those people raging on Facebook or Twitter, checking the news every few minutes, living on the fuel of outrage and anger.

On Inauguration Day, I commit myself to listening, and trying to understand the message other people, my fellow citizens, are sending, I have heard the primal screams but do not yet fully comprehend them.

I commit myself  to being open-minded and positive, and to not add to the din of arguing, lament and worry and grievance.  I would like my writing and my photos to life people up, not to bring them down or stoke anger and divisiveness.

There is much good news for me. I feel I am giving birth to myself again, in ways that are good.

I commit myself to doing good, to identifying myself as a member of the moral and compassionate community, wherever I may find them. I do not identify myself as a person who is for our against our new President. I hope he succeeds, that would mean we all succeed.

No President or politician will live in my head or determine what is in over the next years, that my choice, and not how I choose to live. I cannot survive that way.

I commit myself to showing up, to being myself, to understanding and embracing my own values and following them. First, I need to be absolutely certain as to what they are.  I commit myself once more to not telling other people what to do and think, or judging them for what they believe and think.

The key to my feelings are thoughts are me, not anyone else. I carry no label, not the left or the right. I do not permit anyone else to label me. I choose to think for myself.

I do not look to tell other people what to do, to argue their beliefs or mine, or to berate people for their own thoughts. My idea is to show up and keep faith with myself. To engage in small acts of good and kindness. To take beautiful photos and write words that life people up and help them think. To love and honor my wife. Good and important work, all of it.

I see a number of things comfort, ground and define me. My love for Maria, for my daughter and granddaughter. My love of animals and my life with them, my wish to do good, my blog and my photography, our animals, my books. My friends, my community and character. Those things will be my focus, my sense of being, my purpose.

I will follow the spirit and heart of my spiritual guides – the true Christ, Thomas Merton, the Dalai Lama, Mandela, Gandhi, Dr. King, the mystics Kabbalah.  In a sense, they all confronted the same challenge and dilemma I face: how to love, do good and retain hope in the face of great diversity. They are valuable to study because they did what I wish to do.

They inspire and inform me. I will seek to give hope to the poor, comfort to the afflicted,  encouragement to the creative, as I enter a new and rich phase of life,  I will share what little wisdom I have learned with those who wish to hear it.

I do not seek to cajole others to fit my own image. We must learn to live with one another, or perish together.

This year has been a gift for me, it has challenged me to affirm my values, to acknowledge them and bring them to the fore of my life, rather than to let them languish in the background.

I will not be angry, but I will not be oblivious either. I think, for once in my life, my country needs me, and that is an enthralling idea for me. It connects me to America in a new and powerful way. Our experiment is important, for us, for the world.

My salvation does not lie in the political realm, but in the personal and spiritual world. Washington is not my capital, I worship the farm, nature, my life, and the good hearts and souls of people.

The next years will ask me to consider carefully how I will live, act and feel, rather than simply react to the argument of the day. I am serious about this process and will share my journey with you, as always. I am hopeful, the opposite of hope is despair, and I will not surrender to that.

As always, I’ll share the trip.

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